Hi gang,
Two ideas have been brought up. One of them involves reichskomissariats. The original developer rejected the idea and I concur. They were simply administrative divisions. In the game design they become national provinces over time from certain events and investments. Reichskommisariats represented as puppet states means no partisans and I don't think this is realistic.
The original developer also rejected the idea of Hitler death on the grounds that he is alive in the book in the 1960s. However, I will resolve the issue differently with a compromise.
Event A--January 30, 1953-- Hitler is in the middle of giving a speech on the 20th anniversary of his coming to power when he suddenly collapses. Martin Borman, who has carved out a considerable powerbase as Hitler's appointment secretary, quickly intervenes and orders the Fuhrer rushed to the hospital. An unknown doctor whose identity we are never told of (only Borman knows who he is and he's not talking--rumor is that it's either a Jewish physician leading a shadowy underground life--such people were actually called "U-boats", or an Oriental medicine specialist known to Alexander von Falkenhausen and Chiang Ching-kuo, or some secret contact in the UK, or maybe it's a whole team of specialists) Either way he gets qualified medical help. This doctor then summons Dr. Morrel, and reviews his prescriptions. He recognizes Dr. Morrel as a quack, but the Fuhrer is elaborately deceived and told that Dr. Morrel came up with a new miracle cure. Morrel is ordered behind the scenes to change his treatments. Part of the treatment is more rest, and Hitler becomes more of a semi-retired ceremonial figure even though officially still in charge.
Check this website:
http://www.itmonline.org/arts/parkinsons.htm.
As a result of this treatment he is completely cured. Without Mao to close off China to the world, Oriental medicine becomes much more widely known to the west and much sooner than in the real timeline.
On event A the German player is given two choices. option_a "Get the Fuhrer qualified help" is this special treatment which sleeps death event B. option_b is "The Fuhrer will see only Dr. Morrel". If this option is chosen there is "no immediate effect", but we all know that this allows death event B to occur.
Event B--March 5, 1953 (date chosen to coincide with Stalin's death IRL)
The Fuhrer dies and a successor is named--I'm open to ideas but to me the logical choices are
Goering
Doenitz
Himmler
Borman.
I tend to favor Himmler primarily because of the Waffen SS, and the need for Germany to establish good relations with its Asian associates. Borman can keep his #2 position as the real power behind the scenes. Naturally Himmler had his dark side also. If Borman becomes #1 I'd say Speer #2 as Corporate Suit if he does not already have a HOG personality.
Hess is out of the picture. The last act of the Churchill administration was to put Hess on a submarine and take him to Canada where he is held in a top-secret facility. The Allies would never ever release Hess due to what he might reveal about British intelligence if he talked.
If you want to change the probability of the Fuhrer dying then change the choice probabilities in Event A.
This cannot be called a "Fatherland" mod unless there is a significant chance of Hitler staying alive. But in effect this will be a user option.
Initial testing will be a bare-bones project just to verify stability, but that doesn't mean that I haven't accepted the ideas. They'll just be implemented later. I personally think the top areas for improvement are #1 Platinean War
#2 Oil resources events in Middle East #3 Decline in US oil production.
Although hot war is conceivable I think cold war with a battle for proxies and points is the more common outcome.
China can be improved. I'll make that my area. Recent finds of about 40 more pro-Japanese Chinese leaders and 200 more Chi-com generals means there are now 3 different factions in China that can contend for power each with an independently adequate number of generals. Right now there are only 2 in the game at start--Empire of China (Pu-Yi) and Nationalist China (Chiang), but Communist China has always been in the background as a possible released puppet of just about anybody.
Right now am working on revision of the USA elections essentially keeping most of them but updating the code to sleep the vanilla events. Also updating USA files. JFK assassination is eliminated because Vanilla has an event and that is now irrelevant for the mod. USA politics is more manageable by the player. You'd probably want to steer the USA toward the left of its historical path.
India is leader of the Comintern and if they can get a Chinese and Soviet alliance the Comintern may actually be able to pull off a victory on points.